New Delhi runway turns into a zoo

by Jamie Rhein on

The mix of animals, traffic and people in New Delhi is fascinating any day of the week. When I lived there, pulling up alongside an elephant at a traffic light did happen. Avoiding hitting the cows that meandered at the sides of the roads was a daily venture.

Once, our car grazed a cow just as it twitched its hind end towards traffic. When the side-view mirror was snapped off, my husband quipped, “It must have been in a reflective mood.”

There was one section where fruit bats the size of dogs hung upside down from trees, and another part where monkeys gathered in large groups. Camels also meandered through the neighborhood. Hiring one for a kid’s birthday party was standard.

Recently, New Delhi has become more zoo-like with the heavy rains. As animals are getting flooded out of their natural habitat homes, they’ve looked for higher ground and have found it at the New Delhi airport on the runways. Lizards, jackals and birds have shown up in large enough numbers that they’ve been removed to a wildlife sanctuary.

Just another reason for a flight delay. “Monitor lizard in the way. Please be patient; we’ll be taking off shortly.”

According to the article, this three to four-foot-long creature can create some significant damage to an airplane. I’ll say.

When’s Bangladesh going to disappear?

by Jerry Guo on

The country’s the size of Iowa, but has half the population of the entire United States. Oh, and by the way, it could possibly be wiped out in the next century.

Here’s the thing: Bangladesh happens to be situated at sea level in a region of the world where flooding and monsoons are already a problem. As it stands, each year roughly half the country is under water at one point or another. But because of possible rising sea levels in the next 20 years (even a 20-centimeter rise) could devastate 10-million Bangladeshis.

We’ve heard of small island nations like Tuvalu (most famous for their Internet TLD: .TV) that are doomed to extinction if global warming pans out. But if the same thing happens to Bangladesh, that’s going to be more than a humanitarian disaster. They have a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement and a very weak government, which means the threat of less and less land (and more and more water) will undoubtedly destabilize the region.

As with many recent postings (a la Mt. Kilimanjaro), all this is to say visit Bangladesh soon, lest it be under water by the time you get around to it. Here’s a great analysis piece about Bangladesh and global warming in this month’s Atlantic.